In a nutshell, the Texas Payday Law (TPL) requires an employer to pay its employees in full and on time on regularly-scheduled paydays. The law deals with the timing and manner of wage payments and how to avoid illegal deductions from wages. There are also provisions for a wage claim and appeal process, for collection of wage judgments, and for prevention of future violations of the wage payment laws.
The thrust of the TPL is to require timely payment of wages that are due and payable. In order to determine what is due and payable, the law looks to all factors going into the compensation agreement, including rate, method, and frequency of pay, written and unwritten agreements concerning wages, and state and federal laws regarding wages and hours.
A very large influence on the TPL is the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the main federal wage and hour law. In order to determine what wages are due and payable, the law must first determine what legal requirements apply, including federal laws requiring payment of minimum wage and overtime. In addition, wage agreements must sometimes be analyzed in terms of their status as contracts. Thus, an understanding of both federal and state laws, as well as general contract law, is essential to avoiding problems under the TPL.
The focus of this article is the permissibility of deductions from an employee's pay and how an employer needs to deliver the pay to its employees.
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